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California Air Resources Board News Clips for December 15, 2010. 


This is a service of the California Air Resources Board’s Office
of Communications.  You may need to sign in or register with
individual websites to view some of the following news articles.

AIR POLLUTION

Affordable Housing Groups Oppose New Air Rules. New rules
designed to limit home construction in areas with high air
pollution in the Bay Area are meeting resistance from a
surprising source - advocates for affordable housing. The
guidelines, approved by the Bay Area Air Quality Management
District in June and set to go into effect Jan. 1, will be
discussed at a meeting today. The recommendations identify areas
where the district says the amount of air pollution should give
developers pause. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/14/BAQP1GP2BS.DTL#ixzz18CKZXw3d

Ways To Measure And Reduce Black Carbon Emissions. San Francisco
-- Could a network of cell phones improve air pollution
monitoring? That's the hope of Nithya Ramanathan, an assistant
research professor of computer science at the University of
California, Los Angeles. She's part of a team that has developed
a system that relies on cell phones to report concentrations of
black carbon, a particle produced by burning fossil fuels and
biofuels like wood and dung. Tiny particles of black carbon are
potent warmers. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/15/2

CLIMATE CHANGE

Court Order on Greenhouse Gas Rules Provides Comfort to Industry
Challengers. When a federal appeals court announced Friday that
it wouldn't stay U.S. EPA's greenhouse gas regulations, it was
not the completely decisive win for the Obama administration it
may have seemed. In the order (pdf), the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia also said the three cases it
will hear on the regulations will be dealt with collectively, or
"coordinated" in legal terms, a decision that was a partial
victory for industry groups challenging the rules. Posted.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/12/14/14greenwire-court-order-on-greenhouse-gas-rules-provides-co-4226.html

Bay Area Group Sees Opportunities For Calif.'S Entrepreneurs In
China. San Francisco -- California is positioned to attain a
solid foothold in Chinese markets if policymakers here continue
on a path that began when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed
the state's climate change measure into law in 2006, says a study
from a Bay Area economic group. The report, from the Bay Area
Council Economic Institute, says China's emergence as the leading
global supplier of solar panels and its internal focus on other
clean-tech sectors (including electric cars) could provide "a
market for California products and services and ... a source of
investment." Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/15/3

Stern Says More Cooperation Needed Before A New Climate Treaty Is
Ready. Todd Stern, the White House's lead negotiator at climate
talks that concluded last week in Cancun, Mexico, sympathized
yesterday with countries that want to replace the Kyoto Protocol
with a new agreement. In a briefing at the State Department
yesterday, Stern said Japan, Australia, Russia and Canada
hesitate to extend the protocol -- the current agreement that
obligates some countries to cut their emissions -- after its
first phase ends in 2012. The United States has not ratified the
protocol; China and India are not subject to its emissions
targets. Posted.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/15/4

Timber Companies Stand To Benefit From New Climate Law.
California timber firms could emerge as big winners in the
state’s fight against global warming; earning millions of dollars
through the sale of carbon credits if a new set of rules are
approved by the Air Resources Board this week. The plan has
stoked controversy among environmentalists who assert it gives
the timber industry too good a deal, enabling them to clear-cut
trees at the expense of the overall vitality of the forests,
while the timber industry claims the plan will help them promote
the storage of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, in the trees on
their land. Posted.
http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/timber-companies-stand-benefit-new-climate-law-7469

Benicia May Hire Web Designer for Climate Action Plan. The city
soon may be looking for a web designer to spruce up its climate
protection website, which hasn't been updated in a year. The City
Council recently heard plans for the project, which is among 13
Benicia Climate Action Plan "implementation strategies" on which
the city will focus in 2011. Also, city officials told the
council they're developing program guidelines, marketing plans
and outreach materials for programs meant to encourage residents
to replace plumbing and lighting fixtures with more efficient
ones. The City Sustainability Commission is expected to review
this work next month. Posted.
http://www.timesheraldonline.com/news/ci_16863236

California Climate Law Details to Get Grand Unveiling. As
politicians around the nation become increasingly hesitant about
taking action against global warming, California is pushing ahead
this week with two much-awaited steps that will have broad
implications for climate policies at home and elsewhere. The
decisions by state regulators in separate meetings Thursday
amount to the grand unveiling of California's climate strategy
after years of debate and exhaustive policy-crunching. Posted.
http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20101215/california-climate-law-details-get-grand-unveiling

DIESEL 

Sacramento Area Grant Program for Diesel Reductions Popular in
2010. SECAT (Sacramento Emergency Clean Air & Transportation
Grant Program) had a banner year in 2010, closing out the
application process early due to “overwhelming response” and
ending its first decade with over $75 million already allocated
to help replace on-road heavy-duty diesel vehicles in the
Sacramento area with lower emission vehicles. Posted.
http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/42261/Sacramento_Area_Grant_Program_for_Diesel_Reductions_Popular_in_2010

EPA Gifts $5 Million to Southern Alliance for Clean Energy to
Promote Clean Big Rigs. Big rig trucks use a lot of diesel fuel
but for a good and worthy cause. The backbone of our overland
supply transport network puts on a significant number of miles
every year, and the Environmental Protection Agency decided the
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy was worthy of a $5 million
award to help promote cleaner rig trucks. Posted.
http://www.trucktrend.com/features/news/2010/163_news101215_epa_clean_energy_big_rigs/index.html

VEHICLES

California to Build an EV Charging Network in the State. An
alliance of automakers, utilities and regulators in California
have joined hands to build a charging network that could handle 1
million electric vehicles in the state by 2020. The California
Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative came up with a plan to
build charging a charging infrastructure across homes and
businesses within the next decade, right after the first Nissan
LEAF was delivered to a customer in the state. The first shipment
of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt also left the Detroit-Hamtramck
assembly plant on Monday. Posted.
http://alttransport.com/2010/12/california-to-build-an-ev-charging-network-in-the-state/

GREEN ENERGY

A Push to Make Air Travel More Environmentally Friendly. More
than 43 million Americans are expected to fly over the winter
holidays, and among them will be many conflicted eco-conscious
travelers. Airplanes release huge quantities of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming."I do
fly, and I feel very guilty about it," said Nadine Mellor, 44, of
San Francisco. "I try to lead a low-carbon lifestyle -- we don't
own a car, and as a family we're making a conscious effort to
reduce our carbon emissions. Posted.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16857759?source=rss

Renewable-Energy Program Has Chance Of Extension. Congressional
approval could happen as early as Wednesday to extend the 1603
cash grant program, which covers up to 30% of the cost of
projects such as solar-panel installations. But amendments could
derail the proposal. A federal stimulus program that has helped
keep renewable-energy projects afloat during the recession could
get a second wind despite industry fears that it might become a
casualty of partisan bickering in Congress. Posted.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-fi-solar-grants-20101215,0,2050149,print.story

Sen. Murkowski Summons A Delayed FERC Study On Renewable Energy
Integration. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) yesterday asked
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff to
produce a FERC study on integrating wind power and other
renewable energy resources into the nation's power grids, firing
what appeared to be an early warning shot on next year's energy
debates. FERC contracted in May 2009 with Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory to make a comprehensive analysis of frequency
disturbances that could occur on the grid as large amounts of
intermittent renewable energy are added. Posted. 
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/print/2010/12/15/5

OPINION

Viewpoints: Air Resources Board Should Give Clean Energy a Level
Playing Field. There is a hugely flawed assumption that dirty
energy is somehow cheaper than clean energy. The oil rig in the
room, which nobody likes to mention, is that fossil fuels receive
enormous amounts of public subsidies. That's right. You and I are
subsidizing oil companies with billions of dollars every year –
$550 billion globally, to be exact – while they are reaping huge
profits.  Oil production is among the most heavily subsidized
businesses in the United States. Posted.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/15/3258135/air-resources-board-should-give.html#ixzz18CRyY42z


Renewable Power Costs Much More. I have noticed that there have
been a lot of complaints about the MID raising electric rates. I
wonder if they realize that both the MID and the Turlock
Irrigation District are now required to get 30 percent of their
power from renewable resources. This cannot include hydroelectric
power. These renewable sources can cost as much as four times as
much as natural gas generation. Posted.
http://www.modbee.com/2010/12/14/1472021/renewable-power-costs-much-more.html#ixzz18CXw78bz

BLOGS

Oakland Plans to Become an Environmental Leader. One of the City
of Oakland's goals is to become a model green city, according to
its sustainability program. For the past year and a half, the
city has been hashing out an Energy and Climate Action Plan
(ECAP) to identify and prioritize what it can do to lower its
greenhouse gas emissions and reduce energy use. The first draft
of the plan was launched on Earth Day 2010 in April, and focused
on reducing the city's greenhouse gas emissions by more than a
third of what they were in 2005 by the year 2020. Posted.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inoakland/detail?entry_id=79082#ixzz18CnsnaeS

Carbon Storage Could Be Shaky Proposition. Some say storing
carbon underground as a way to curb greenhouse gas emissions is
risky. The container has to last essentially forever, and what if
an earthquake rips through the seal? But new research is showing
that pumping CO2 underground could itself trigger earthquakes.
Stanford University geophysicist Mark Zoback looked at saline
aquifers, one of the main types of geologic formations under
assessment for carbon sequestration. Posted.
http://blogs.kqed.org/climatewatch/2010/12/14/carbon-storage-could-be-shaky-proposition/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FClimateWatchBlog+%28KQED%27s+Climate+Watch+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Urban Light Pollution Boosts Air Pollution. Living in Manhattan,
where on a good night you only see a couple stars in the sky and
it's never truly dark due to light pollution, this one
particularly hits home for me: BBC News reports that a new
presentation at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San
Francisco shows how bright city lighting makes air pollution
worse. Posted.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/12/urban-light-pollution-boosts-air-pollution.php

California’s Climate Laws Undermined by Weak Transpo Policies,
Investment. A new report from NRDC and Smart Growth America —
which examines what all 50 states are doing to curb greenhouse
gas emissions from transportation — lauds California as the most
progressive state on policy, but points out that its
transportation and spending priorities don’t match the bold
blueprints, particularly as it relates to public transit. Posted.
http://sf.streetsblog.org/2010/12/14/californias-climate-laws-undermined-by-weak-transpo-policies-investment/